Article ID: | iaor20127331 |
Volume: | 54 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 87 |
End Page Number: | 97 |
Publication Date: | Dec 2012 |
Journal: | Decision Support Systems |
Authors: | Fan Weiguo, Wang G Alan, Abrahams Alan S, Jiao Jian |
Keywords: | quality & reliability |
A pressing need of vehicle quality management professionals is decision support for the vehicle defect discovery and classification process. In this paper, we employ text mining on a popular social medium used by vehicle enthusiasts: online discussion forums. We find that sentiment analysis, a conventional technique for consumer complaint detection, is insufficient for finding, categorizing, and prioritizing vehicle defects discussed in online forums, and we describe and evaluate a new process and decision support system for automotive defect identification and prioritization. Our findings provide managerial insights into how social media analytics can improve automotive quality management.